Game of Insanity
by Thirteenth Shadow
Summary: Still on the path of recovery, Lindsay Monroe decided that she was ready to talk to Mac on behalf of the new CSI who was currently in comatose. It was the only way to keep her sane after being claimed to play the Game of Insanity.
1. Prologue

**CSI: NY **

_I've been trying to type this out for weeks now but never really got satisfied with how it turned out. Anyway, now I've done just that, this story basically focuses on Lindsay who is trying to retell what really happened when she has to play the Game of Insanity. Of course, the rest will be involved. This is only the prologue so it's a little short. It's just a little introduction._

_Please read and review._

**Game of Insanity **

Still on the path of recovery, Lindsay Monroe decided that she was ready to talk to Mac on behalf of the new CSI who was currently in comatose. It was the only way to keep her sane after being claimed to play the Game of Insanity.

****

****

**Prologue **

She ascended the crippled wooden stairs slowly, step by step. It creaked from under her weight. A few steps ahead of her stood a wooden door – the only door to her freedom. She pressed both of her palms against it and gave it a hard and firm push – it didn't budge outward. She tried pulling at the metal ring on the door – nothing; it was locked. She was locked in. She banged her shoulders once against it. What sounded like a metal lock rattled against the wood. She banged harder.

She knew there was somebody nearby and she heard them talking. If she could get their attention with the rattling, then she wasn't about to pass that chance up.

She needed to get out.

Taking a deep breath in, she rammed her shoulders against the door with all her might. She repeated it several times, the determination and willingness of getting out growing stronger with each hit. She stopped though, just for a brief moment, breathless and in pain. She focused her eyes on the woman lying unconscious at the foot of the stairs as she gained endurance.

They needed to get out.

Her jacket was tattered and frayed, matted with blood. So was her hair. Bruises, scratches, and deep gashes were all over her body. The smell here—wherever _here _was—was too overwhelming. She knew it was blood, and something else. The smell was everywhere – the smell of death. She saw bodies here and there and many were mainly fresh ones. It was a horrible sight for even a CSI like her. Sure she had dealt with worse cases than this, but many little children and teenagers? It was a massacre down here.

"Wherever down here is," she muttered as she banged her fists this time against the door. _I'm not staying down here any longer._ She banged ferociously, and even kicked the door with her left leg when she remembered she had sprained her right ankle. "Help!"

It surprised her even when she had not started crying yet. She wanted to but somehow she felt calm and collected enough to keep repeating that there was a way out over and over again in her head. It had become a mantra for the past few…days, perhaps? It was too dark down here. There were no windows, no fresh air, no sunlight and no contact with the outside. It could be weeks, even.

Then there was a voice – from the other side. "…_say_?" Though she couldn't quite hear, it was a familiar voice. "_Lind_…" The voice was muffled up.

She opened her mouth to call back, to respond but instead she found herself finally crying. She didn't know what happened. She was strong all along, right from the start, going through unnecessary obstacles, running away from a man who had gone totally psycho, watching the only sane company she had going into unconsciousness…up until now.

She just broke down.

"Lindsay?" the voice reached her ears clearer now. There was banging on the door. "Irina?" It was a masculine voice, and it sounded unsure at the mention of the latter name, as if not knowing if he should called for Lindsay or Irina. "_Talk…me_!"

It finally dawned on her. She knew why she so suddenly started crying. Hearing that masculine voice, the presence of that man standing on the other side of the door, was enough to assure her that it was over – the nightmare was over. He had finally found her – Danny Messer.

"Danny?" she managed to squeaked out, banging on the door once.

"Lindsay!" He sounded relieved. She heard him messing with the metal lock, probably trying to unlock it, and then the door shook twice. "_Are…in there_?" His voice came out muffled up again.

She didn't bother asking what. "Danny, I want to get out."

There was silence.

"_Lindsay…around you_…" The next moment the voice spoke, it was loud and clear. "Where are you? Look around you." It was an authoritative voice that could only belonged to one man – Mac Taylor.

She did a quick glance around. It was just walls on either sides of her with a really narrow space to walk through in between it and the damp ground beneath her feet. Not to mention the condition down here was filthy. Then her eyes fell upon the unconscious body. She turned back around to the door.

"It's uh, it's like a narrow passageway," she answered as clear as she could, hoping her voice wasn't muffled up.

"Where's Irina?" Mac asked next.

"She's at the foot of the stairs – unconscious." She wiped the sweat away from her palms onto her pants. "Mac, please, I want to get out."

"Okay, listen to me. I need you to step away from the door, as far as possible. Cover Irina and face away from the door. Do you hear me, Lindsay?"

"Yes, Mac," she replied, staggering down the steps.

"We're going to get you out," Mac's words reached her ears as she wiped a tear away. "It's a promise."


	2. Confession

**CSI: NY**

_My thanks to_ Niki,ChocoBetty chili-peppers_ and_ xbexyboox _for your reviews! It's very much appreciated._

_Here's chapter one. Please read and review._

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter One**

Stella Bonasera stood outside the room looking through the glass. Her eyebrows were furrowed and she was frowning at the sight before her. It wasn't that she was upset or anything alike. She was just wondering, thinking as many what-ifs were going through her head that might prevent this from happening.

She couldn't help but sympathize for Irina Callahan, the latest addition to the team. The day she went missing along with Lindsay was on her second week of working with the team. Just two weeks into starting her new job, already this happened to her. Who in their right mind would do such a thing?

IVs were hooked, a cast on her right hand, stitches on her arms, a band aid on her forehead, and a bandage wrapped around her left ankle. That was only what visible to people's eyes. Stella heard from Mac that there were more – a puncture wound in her side along with other things on the inside which she couldn't seem to remember. It was something about broken ribs.

"Thought I'd find you here," Flack said quietly as he stood by Stella, looking through the glass and at the woman lying in the bed. They stood quietly side by side, not saying or doing anything. It was a silent moment for the two as thoughts raced through their minds which wasn't good for Stella; she somehow felt like she was to be blamed.

"Who in their right mind would do such things?" Flack muttered not really expecting an answer and by such things he meant the killing of five innocent children, four teenagers, and many other unidentified bodies – each was killed with a different method.

"That's the problem, Flack," Stella spoke up, "the man's not right in the mind; he's psycho."

"And dead, too," he added.

"It should have been me lying right there."

"Stella," Flack placed a hand upon her shoulder. "It's not your fault."

Stella and Hawkes were supposed to attend to that scene. They could have just drive over on their way back to the lab. They could have processed it but Stella decided that the evidence they had collected at the previous scene couldn't wait. So that was when Irina offered to help with the assistance from Lindsay. Mac agreed and let them go.

Only to find out that they didn't come back, and were later reported missing. Flack was the only one to last saw them – at the scene before he had to take off to attend to another scene.

"Well, at least they're still breathing," Stella finally said after a moment of silence, her lips slowly turning into a weak smile. "Or Danny would have hated me for Lindsay's death, which I hope I'm never going to be the cause of it."

Flack chuckled lightly. "I need to ask you something. I've been riding the elevator up and down trying to find Mac. He said he's down at Lindsay's ward but he wasn't there. He said he's up here, but I don't see him. Can you tell me exactly where he is right now?"

"He's trying to get Lindsay to talk."

**X**

Danny stared at the sprawled out Lindsay on the hospital bed. Her eyes were wide opened. She wasn't really talking to him nor did she respond when he asked her a question. She just lay sprawled out like that staring at the ceiling. He had once glanced up earlier to see what was so interesting about the ceiling that she wasn't responding to him – there was nothing intriguing enough to have caught all of her—or in this case—his attention.

Mac looked at her looking rather deeply concerned. Her right ankle was wrapped with a bandage, very much like how Irina's ankle was. She had got no cast on her, but band aids all over – and bruises and several stitches here and there. Her hair was clean now, a really light shade in between of blonde and brown, instead of pinkish red when they finally bust the door opened two days ago.

It had been two days ago, and for the past two days, Lindsay hadn't said much. Just a few words before she went into the state of being daze-like. It killed Danny to see her like this but it killed him more to see Irina dead. Well, she wasn't dead for real, but being in comatose was as good as being dead.

Mac loomed over the bed, looking intently down at her. "Lindsay," he started off. "Do you have anything to do with Edward Smith's death?"

Danny folded his arms across his chest and waited for a response – if there was any coming from her.

Edward Smith – he was a man, obviously, but a man who wasn't entirely sane. He was once admitted into a mental institution, and then got released after eight months. Two months after that, he landed himself right back in which this time he got released after ten months, and it didn't stop there. That was only his background, not his rap sheet yet. His rap sheet, Danny could go on for an eternity.

To make a long story short, all that had turned him into a one havoc psychotic maniac.

This Edward Smith was spectacular.

"I'm tired," Lindsay finally said. It was a quick and short reply.

Mac sighed and nodded. It had been that way always. One question relating to the incident, she would say something to make him give in and give up. Just like how he was letting the matter rest for now.

Flack appeared by the door and waited. Mac acknowledged his presence by giving him a nod before he looked back down at Lindsay. "I'll let you rest then."

"Three of the children are on the missing persons list," Flack said as they walked farther away from the door. "All went missing about three months ago. No such luck for the other two."

"So what do you need?" Mac asked rubbing his forehead.

"It's not for me; it's for the Missing Persons Squad."

**X**

"He's mad at me." No, it wasn't a question. Lindsay was stating it right after Mac was away from the room. Mac was mad at her. She could feel it. Besides, it didn't take a genius to figure that out. It was common sense. One would be mad by now.

"He's not, Lindsay." Danny argued. "He's just…tired. It's been an intense search after all." He sprang to his feet immediately when she tried to move up on the bed, so her head was fully resting on the pillow. "You shouldn't move too much," he said softly.

She didn't say anything to that. She didn't even nod. She pulled the blanket further up over her body. He went back to the chair and settled down once again. They sat in an uncomfortable silence. He tried to start a conversation with her, a small one would do but every time he parted his lips, the words got stuck in his throat and he was forced to close them back up.

As for Lindsay, she didn't know if she wanted Danny to be there, at all. Sure she was glad that he was the one to find her, the one to carry her out the busted door, the first one to ask if she was all right…but she wanted some alone time for now. She wanted to do some thinking, catch up on her sleep, perhaps, or see how Irina was doing under intensive care.

"I want to sleep," she said.

"I'll be right here," Danny answered pulling the blanket even further up, tucking her in.

She bit on her lower lip and appeared to be thoughtful. Danny waited for her to speak, if that was what she was debating on doing. Then finally, she said, "I killed Edward Smith."


	3. Ready

**CSI: NY**

_Once again, I would like to start the new chapter off by thanking the following lovely readers that reviewed: _xbexyboox chili-peppersChocoBetty_ and_ Dicsi._ I appreciate them all. Also, I would like to apologize for the delay with posting this chapter up. I hope you'd like this one._

_And...p__lease read and review. _

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Two**

"I brought you a little something," Hawkes announced brightly with a grin the moment he entered Lindsay's room the following day. As expected, she didn't say anything but she returned his grin with a small smile with her index finger pressed against her lips. Hawkes looked over at the slumped figure in the plastic chair next to the bed, sleeping in an awkward position. He looked back at Lindsay in disbelief and whispered, "Danny spent the night here?"

Lindsay nodded as a reply as Hawkes proceeded to empty the glass vase where the wilting sunflowers were placed at. It was Danny who bought it for her and though she ought to be happy that at least he had a good intention to brighten up the dull-looking room with it whilst she was there; he had gotten her the wrong flower. She never liked sunflowers, to be honest; it was never her favorite and when Danny said the other day: "_I know you like sunflowers; so I bought some for you_," it was heartbreaking.

He had forgotten her favorite kind of flower—tulips.

"You like tulips, right?" Hawkes asked never taking his eyes off the fresh yellow tulips as he made a little adjustment to the arrangement. After he was satisfied, he took a step back and smiled triumphantly at Lindsay. "That's better, don't you think?" Without waiting for an answer (and this time, she would have said something if he had waited longer), he picked up the wilted sunflowers to discard them when Flack entered with a loud knock on the door. Danny jerked awake from his sleep in the seat.

Flack threw him an apologetic look before he turned to Hawkes and held out a bouquet of fresh red and white roses to him. "You forgot this." Hawkes smiled at him sheepishly as he brushed past Flack to do what he intended on doing earlier. Flack turned to Lindsay then. "Good morning, Lindsay," he greeted.

"Morning," Lindsay replied after a moment with yet another small smile. It seemed like it was a forced one (and it felt halfhearted to her, too) but she really was smiling at him; it was a sincere smile.

"Did you sleep well?" Flack asked next as he watched Danny stretched out in the chair. It was a question for Lindsay, of course, but she wasn't sure about that; it seemed as though he was actually asking Danny instead of her. So she kept quiet and observed. Flack frowned a little. "Did _you _sleep well?" Now, _that_ was a question directed to Danny.

Danny seemed to be thinking as he fidgeted about in the chair. He looked as if he was at ease the first few moments when he suddenly made a face. "My back hurts," he said, "my neck too."

Hawkes graced the room once again with his presence. He snatched the bouquet that Flack had been holding on to and took a sniff in. Then, again, the grin crept back to his lips. "If I may be excused for a moment, I have another delivery to make."

"What delivery?" Flack asked suspiciously. Well, he knew for sure that Hawkes was about to deliver the bouquet to somewhere for somebody, though he wasn't that dense not to know that Hawkes was about to deliver it up to Irina's room. Even if that was the case, then he was just wasting his money and time. "I should have asked for who those roses are earlier," Flack admitted to him.

Danny who was now wiping at the lens of his glasses with the hem of his green polo shirt, asked, "Is that for Irina?" Lindsay looked over at him. It was something about him mentioning her name that made her do it. "If it is, then don't bother; she's allergic to roses." He put his glasses back on and through clean and shiny lens, he smiled at Hawkes.

And upon hearing that, Lindsay frowned. Clearly noticeable for others to see or just a mild saddened expression on her face, she didn't know nor did she care, but she did frown. If he could remember what was to be kept away from Irina, why couldn't he remember her favorite kind of flower? She felt something she never felt before. Perhaps, it had been there for a long time and maybe she was just neglecting the feeling back then but now, she realized that the feeling hurts.

Before any three of them spoke anything, Lindsay reached her hands out to Danny. He looked at her. "What is it, Lindsay?"

**X**

"Broken ribs, fractured wrist, sprained ankle, and a puncture wound?" Zachary Callahan asked sounding incredulous, as if not believing what he was hearing. Well, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. All that happened to his baby sister? It was hard to grasp the facts. His gaze was intent on Mac before he jerked his head towards the glass where he saw the serene face of her unconscious sister in bed, hooked to IVs. "Who did this?" he asked next, almost in a whisper.

Mac could see the reflection of Zachary's face on the glass. His eyebrows were furrowed, crease lines appeared upon his forehead, and his fingers were clenched into a fist, as he stared through the glass. His black mane was wet under the fluorescent light in the hallway due to the pouring rain outside. His shoulders seemed slumped, and when Mac first met him out front earlier, he had never seen such vivacious blue eyes filled with misery. He knew this because he saw the same thing in Flack's eyes when Mac found him standing by the glass pane, looking into the room not too many days ago.

"As if that's not enough," he continued softly but with a hint of anger in his voice, "she had to go into coma after all that?"

It was a rhetorical question, so Mac didn't answer. Then he whirled around and faced Mac. He asked for the second time, "who did this?"

"Edward Smith," Mac answered, his eyes darting away from his as he caught a glimpse of Danny approaching. "He's dead."

Without missing a beat, Zachary bellowed, "He better be because I'd kill that bastard myself!"

Mac tried his best not to flinch at the sudden change of tone in his voice. He should have seen that coming – the anger rising inside Zachary's strapping figure. From what little stories Irina had shared with Mac about her family, particularly her brother, he knew Zachary was a cantankerous man; ill-tempered and belligerent. That was the exact words of Irina anyway. "_We don't have the best brother-sister relationship, but he's a good man,_" Irina would say.

"Zachary, this is Danny Messer. Danny, this is Zachary Callahan—"

"I know," Zachary mumbled turning his back on them to look at Irina once again. "We met once."

"Irina's brother," Danny nodded, smiling at him sympathetically.

Danny stood quietly next to Mac, not knowing if this was a good time to talk to him in private, considering the disturbed look he had on his face. Or if he should wait until Zachary seemed to calm down before he spoke up. But Mac saved him the trouble by asking what he wanted.

Stepping away from Zachary, Danny said in a low voice, "Look, Mac, I know I should have told you this ASAP but Lindsay told me not to; she wanted to tell you herself."

"Tell me what?"

"She killed Edward Smith and she said something, too, which brings me to my reason why I'm here right now," Danny answered.

That took Mac by surprise. He hadn't thought Danny would be telling him all this. "What'd she say?"

"She's ready to talk about the incident. "

**X**


	4. Missing

**CSI: NY**

_First of all, the usual; my thanks to bioassy, chilli-peppers and ChocoBetty **and** yes, you readers are about to find out the very beginning of what later to be a game of insanity._

_So, please read and review._

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Three**

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

That was the third time Mac had asked her the same question. Yes, he was trying to get her to talk about it for the past few days; he wanted to know what happened. He _needed_ to know what happened down there. He needed answers. So why was he hesitating? She was ready. She said it herself.

"I'm sure, Mac," Lindsay assured him yet again.

He nodded, occupying the seat that Danny was sleeping in previously. He noted the fresh yellow tulips and couldn't help it but smile. Flack who was standing by the foot of the bed noticed Mac's gesture. Lindsay fixed her gaze on it.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she spoke softly but Mac didn't say anything. When his eyes finally met hers, she thought she saw something in them – a look of longing, perhaps. His eyes gleamed like it never gleamed before.

"I'm sorry," he apologized after that. "It reminds me of someone."

"Where's Danny?" she asked next, changing the subject.

"He went downstairs to get something," Flack offered. "He'll be back."

"Lindsay, are you sure you want to do this?"

That was the fourth time now, Hawkes noted, and he would keep counting until the talk officially began. He inched closer to Flack and whispered, "Why does he keep doing that?"

Flack shrugged his shoulders in return. "No idea."

"Mac, I can't sleep at night because I hear and I see what happened down there every time I close my eyes. There are voices in my head and it's driving me insane," she admitted. "If talking about it is what you want and _if_ it helps, then yes, Mac, I'm sure I want to do this."

It took only that and Mac never asked again until Danny came, carrying a writing pad and a pen with him.

"Thanks, Danny," he said looking at him and Hawkes. "I'll see you two back at the lab."

"We're leaving?" Hawkes asked as Flack moved to the other side of the bed and sat in the vacant chair across from Mac.

Mac nodded. "You've got cases to solve, scenes to attend to, and evidence to process. Besides, Stella needs you both. So go back to the lab."

"All right," Danny said and glanced over at Lindsay. "I'll see you later." She watched as the two left until they were out of her sight.

"We're taking down official notes about this for further investigation," Flack started slowly as he pulled out his notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, pen already in hand.

"We need you to be as accurate as possible," Mac added. "Can you do that?"

Lindsay nodded.

"But don't hesitate to notify me if you need a break. We can take it slow."

Lindsay fought the urge to grunt. She knew they cared for her but they were treating her like she was fragile; always had to be careful around her, to handle her with care. So instead of grunting, she said, "I would like to start now."

"Of course," Mac agreed flipping the cover page of the writing pad over, revealing a new clean page, Flack doing the same for his notebook.

"Where do I start?"

"When you arrived at the scene with Irina would be a great start," Mac decided.

She took a deep breath in and exhaled. Suddenly, deciding that she was ready to talk about it seemed like a really bad idea. She could remember that incident so vividly, as if she was there once again, reliving the terrifying period of time in her life that the fear was creeping back into her body, seeping deep into her soul.

As much as she wanted to not talk about it, forget that it ever happened and never looked back on it—and she could if she wanted to—but she knew she couldn't. Now, talking wouldn't guarantee her any help. She wouldn't know if it could chase away those voices in the back of her head, those snippets of scenes she saw herself in, but as Flack had mentioned earlier; official notes would be taken down for further investigation, and she couldn't say no to that.

Lindsay Monroe never said NO when it came to helping in an investigation. It wasn't only because that was her job as a CSI; to investigate and piece the puzzle pieces together, but it was because she wanted to help bring the responsible to justice.

Only, in this case, the responsible was already dead.

With that last thought, she started. "We did what you told us to do," she looked at Mac. "We arrived at the scene and met up with Flack…"

_"Vic's name – Felicia Fontane and that's about it," Flack reported as he handed Lindsay what seemed like a card with his gloved hands. It was a library card and sure enough, the mentioned name was printed against the white background. "There isn't any witness," he added as he took off the latex gloves. They walked towards one of the abandoned warehouses, which was already a secured crime scene._

_"I'm not surprised," Lindsay remarked, slipping the card into an evidence bag that Irina had been holding it out to her, which she then sealed it._

_"No officers standing on guard?" Irina asked when they were a few feet away from the entrance door of the warehouse, the usual _**CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS** _yellow tape in their way._

_Flack himself found it strange. The two police officers that he saw guarding by the entrance door on his way out earlier were now nowhere to be seen. "They're probably around at the back," he had suggested, though he knew they weren't supposed to be anywhere but where they were standing earlier._

_The three had stopped walking by now. None knew why, but they stopped._

_"Um, the body's inside waiting for you two ladies. So she's all yours," he continued, nodding towards the decrepit warehouse; the most decrepit of all the warehouses within the vicinity. "She's lying face down though and before you asked, no, no one has touched or moved the body. We're leaving that to you guys."_

_"You're not coming?" Lindsay asked, slipping her hands into her latex gloves._

_"I got a call while waiting for you two. So I have to go now. You two are going to be okay on your own, right?" he asked teasingly. Though he implied the question to the two, he was actually asking Irina, her being new and all. In fact, this was Irina's first time attending to a scene without Mac's presence._

_Irina, instead of replying to him, looked away, picked up her kit off of the dirt and proceeded on entering the warehouse first._

_"We're going to be okay, Flack," Lindsay smiled as she patted his back and made her way inside._

Lindsay took a shaky breath in. "I knew the moment I entered, something was amiss. It was too still, too silent..."

_"Are you just going to stand there or start processing, Irina?" Lindsay called as she approached her, whose back was facing her. Lindsay stood next to her, looking at the mess before them. It was a thick pool of blood. Regarding the look on Irina's face when she glanced at her, she knew that Irina was as confused as her._

"And why is that?" Mac asked.

"We were confused because the body wasn't there."

Both Mac and Flack exchanged glances.

That was impossible.


	5. Nailed Through

**CSI: NY**

_Okay, so here's chapter four (or five, counting the Prologue). So just let me say my thanks to chili-peppers, xbexyboox and ChocoBetty (I knew I should have just given him a handkerchief, a cloth or something. Apparently, my idea of "ahhh-what-the-heck" after viewing a picture, has deceived me. A photograph just deceived me!) _

_Heh..._

_Anyway, please read and I absolutely appreciate reviews._

_Oh, and I'm sorry if this chapter is too wordy or something. It seems a little too wordy for me...but I don't know. Moving on..._

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Four**

"What do you mean it wasn't there?"

Lindsay met Flack's eyes. His eyebrows were furrowed, his face twisted in confusion. What did _he_ mean by that? Didn't he know that the body was missing? How could he possibly not know? And the look on his face, he actually did look lost. She turned to Mac then, hoping that he wasn't looking as helpless as Flack was. Well, Mac didn't but he had this expectant look on his face – the look which indicated for her to keep talking.

She knew that look.

"What are you trying to say?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two men. "Are you saying that the body was there?"

Flack nodded. "Yeah, it was there, still lying face down. You two didn't bag any evidence. Nothing was done."

Well, of course they didn't bag any evidence. Nothing was done. It wasn't like they intended on doing so. They were trying to grasp the fact that there wasn't any body on the crime scene like they expected to see.

And she was having a hard time grasping the fact that these two men were claiming the otherwise.

"That's impossible," she began to say. "The body wasn't there when we entered."

It was now that she realized talking about the incident wasn't a good idea at all. If she thought she just had to tell them everything from the beginning to the end and that was it they ever needed from her regarding this, she knew she was wrong, because now, she found herself trying to convince the two that what she claimed was indeed true. "Are you sure that's Felicia Fontane's body?"

"It's her, Lindsay. DNA and family confirmed that it's her."

"But I don't understand how the body went missing and then reappear again," she said. "It doesn't make any sense to me."

It didn't make any sense to Mac either, and to Flack. It didn't make sense to any three of them. Just as Mac thought he was just so close to closing this case, something just had to ruin it and prolonged the matter than he intended to. If Lindsay thought something was amiss a while back, something was still amiss now. There were still missing pieces to the puzzle.

"How about you tell us what happened next, Lindsay?" Mac asked at last. "What happened after that?"

She started. "We were just about getting started on collecting a blood sample when…"

_The entrance door behind them slid shut loudly that Lindsay jumped at the sudden noise. She lost her grip on the handle of her kit and it dropped to the ground with a thud that echoed within the practically dead atmosphere. It settled right by her feet and everything was silent then. She stood still and held her breath…in complete darkness, the silence that abruptly took over was deafening to her ears._

_She heard the sound of shuffling feet. It sounded faint, and was thought to be far away from her but she felt a presence just nearby. "Lindsay?" Irina had called out to her meekly. Why, of course, it was Irina moving about. Who else would it be, right? But she wasn't certain. By now, Irina had stopped moving. "Where are you?"_

_"Here," she replied briefly, squatting down and did her best with her fingers to unclip the lock on her kit to get the flashlight out. Irina patted around the pockets of her pieces of clothing, in search of the same thing._

_Then, the shuffling of feet began again._

_"Why are you moving around?" Lindsay asked. The sound stopped and Irina didn't answer her. She didn't need her to because she found her flashlight. She shone it over in the direction of where she thought Irina would be, only to find her at the very same spot she had last seen her before the darkness engulfed them both._

_Irina hadn't moved at all._

_"I thought it was **you** moving around?" Irina asked, sounding uncertain, looking confused and feeling terrified. She never liked being in complete darkness. Quickly, she turned her flashlight on so she could see Lindsay from across her._

_So it wasn't Irina and she sure as hell it wasn't her that moved around. She placed her hand on her gun, just in case. "I'm just," she cleared her throat looking at Irina, "going to open the door." She backed a few steps, made a one-eighty turn and dropped the flashlight almost immediately. She let out a scream, shocked, but soon it came out muffled up as a palm clammed over her mouth._

"Then he knocked me out," she finished off.

"Was it Edward Smith?" Flack asked.

She shook her head. "I don't know. He had a mask on – a plain white mask."

"What happened to Irina?" Mac was the next to ask.

"I guess the same thing happened to her," she said, "because I had to shake her awake."

_Lindsay aroused in a poorly-lit room, the only source of light above her began to flicker. She blinked a few times, refocusing her vision. She was lying flat on her back and as she lay there blinking she realized her blouse was moist; wet and cold, plastered to her skin. It was an uncomfortable feeling; disgusting._

_The walls were white covered with many dirty black handprints, blood splatters (maybe; she wasn't sure) and many indecipherable scrawling of handwritings in red upon the walls. Still lying on the ground, she turned her head to the right. She took in all the writings, her eyes going upward and upward until it fixed on something – something that wasn't really supposed to be nailed to a wall. Hell, it wasn't even detachable. _

_And right next to it, was a greeting message in black bold letters: _

**HELLO, DETECTIVES.**

_Scrambling to her feet—at least she tried to because she had slipped due to the slipperiness beneath her—she inched herself away as far as possible from the wall. Surprisingly, she didn't scream. She was just…shocked. Someone just had an ear nailed to wall. Its lobe even had an ear stud in it. Automatically, her hands shot up to both of her ears, relieved and grateful that it wasn't hers. _

_She finally looked down to check herself. Her blouse was soaked…with red. She had been lying in a pool of blood. Again, she automatically felt around herself, wondering if that was her own pool of blood. But she figured that if that was indeed hers, then she would be in great pain. No one shed such amount of blood and not feel weak and pain, or numbness. She could still feel, she was in no pain and she wasn't feeling weak, and frankly, she never felt so **alive**._

_Her eyes caught a figure lying motionless somewhere to her left. The lilac blouse had identified her as Irina. Relieved that she wasn't alone in a room that looked as if it was showcasing a sick and morbid art, she crawled the remaining distance to her. There was no point in trying to stand up and walk. She would end up falling anyway._

_Gripping Irina's shoulders, she shook her gently. "Irina, wake up." She didn't move an inch. She shook her harder, called her name, pinched her a little, and begged her to wake up. Seeing as she had no other choice, she smacked her on the cheek, once, but hard, and it did work. Lindsay helped her up to a sitting position which then she realized that Irina seemed to be staring back at her. "Hey, are you okay?"_

_Irina blinked. After a moment of silence, she screamed. "Do I look like I'm okay?! Where the hell are we?!"_

_"I don't know," Lindsay said harshly. "There's a fucking ear nailed to a wall."_

_"Oh shit," Irina breathed, gripping Lindsay's wrists, "the two officers."_

_Lindsay turned around._

"They were hanging from the ceiling, eyes wide opened," Lindsay closed her eyes, willing the memory of it away, but of course, she failed miserably. "One of them…" she bit her bottom lip, "his uh…he was still bleeding. His blood was practically oozing out from the wound on his throat." She opened her eyes, deciding that having them closed only made it worse. She met Mac's gaze. "I could still hear the gurgling sound it made, the way how his blood dripped…" She broke the gaze and looked up to the ceiling. "He must have suffered a lot of pain."

Mac shifted in his chair. "You said you two were in a room. So how did you two get out?"

"We found a note, Mac," Lindsay said shortly after. Flack leaned forward, resting both of his elbows on his knees. "He knew our names…and of all places he could nailed it to—"

Oh, it didn't sound good to Flack.

"—he nailed it right through the palm of the officer – with a stake."


	6. Perplexing Discussion

**CSI: NY**

_My apology for the delay.  
My thanks to_ **chili-peppers** _& _**xbexyboox** _for your reviews.  
It is highly appreciated. _

_Here is the following chapter.  
Please read and review._

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Five**

_"Aren't we going to read the note?" Irina finally spoke up, having enough of watching Lindsay pacing around the room looking for a way out. "I mean, it could have something…I don't know, something important inside?"_

_Lindsay ignored her as she went to a nearest wall and pressed her ear against it. Irina watched her in silence. "You hear something?" After a while, Lindsay continued her pacing._

_"There's got to be a door," Lindsay voiced her thoughts._

_"Of course there's got to be," Irina agreed. "It's just a matter of finding it."_

_Lindsay rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Well, I don't see you helping me."_

_Irina bit her bottom lip to suppress herself from saying something she might regret later and sighed. "You don't need me helping you; help is right here in front of me." She was talking about the note in the palm of an officer which Lindsay had deliberately ignored after learning it had been staked through. _

_Lindsay stopped pacing and looked at her. They looked at each other in silence, the only sound they could hear was the soft gurgle of blood oozing out from the wound. The flow had ceased then. The moment Lindsay moved to stand by Irina she knew she had decided to read the note after all. "What are you waiting for?" Irina asked. "Go ahead and take it."_

_"No, you go," she argued, and Irina did without delaying anymore time. _

_Irina tried tugging it out from the stake but ended up tugging his whole arm. The body swayed, hitting her face. After a few more times of tugging and swaying of the body, she stepped back and let both of arms fell limp by her sides. "I can't yank the note out."_

_"No, you can't," Lindsay agreed shortly after. "You need to pull the stake out of his palm."_

_Irina did just like what Lindsay suggested, without any help from her. So when the note was finally in her hands, she handed it over to Lindsay as she wiped the blood on her hands away on the walls, leaving behind her bloody handprint amongst many other decorations._

_"What does it say?" Irina asked walking back to her._

**Detectives Irina Callahan; Lindsay Monroe,**

**You are deep underground. There are many levels above this room that you need to ascend before you reach ground floor. No, I am nobody sadistic who wishes to see you go through pain and torture. This is just a game. That is all there is to it – an innocent game. The ground floor has a door to your freedom. You reach that floor within the given time, you shall be free. I shall free you. You reach that floor after the countdown finishes, you shall still be free but for that to happen you have to earn it. I will tell you how, if it is necessary.**

**There are clues on every level. You find them and solve it. You shall not have any trouble finding the clues. It is the same as this one. In terms of color, I mean – white, a clue inside a white envelope.**

**I shall see you on ground floor soon, Detectives.**

**Here is yourClue #1:**

**3 OF YOUR 5 SENSES SHALL HELP.**

Lindsay took a shaky breath in. This was harder than she thought. She was reliving the past that she would like to leave behind, remembering the details that she didn't want to, and letting the fear to seep back into her soul which she thought had left. It was the same fear she felt the moment she finished reading the message.

It was creeping back.

Mac waited and looked at her to see if she was okay. "Lindsay?" he tried but she didn't quite meet his eyes. Flack suddenly became concerned. His eyes traveled down her arm, stopping at her clenched fists.

They were quivering on her lap.

Flack placed his hand on her upper arm. "Hey, are you okay? You want to take a break?"

Of course, Mac thought. She had enough for today. She needed a break. So he recapped his pen and closed the writing pad on his lap as if he was a therapist. Inching himself closer to the bed, softly, he said, "That will be all for today. You did great, Lindsay."

"I'm sorry," Lindsay apologized. "I'm just tired." She lied. She wasn't tired. She just didn't want to continue from there. Not now; not today. She wanted to stop.

"I know," Mac patted her hand. "You'll rest now."

**X**

Not too long ago, Stella had received a rather disturbing call from Mac, stating that they need to look closer, delved more into depths about Felicia Fontane's case. It was usually not a good sign. She knew it; Danny, too. Even Hawkes did. Now that Flack had graced the room with his presence looking rather serious, they knew something was up.

"What is it, Flack?" Stella asked as he busied himself with looking at the photographs taken at the scene.

"What did Mac told you?" Flack said while craning his neck to actually see what he was seeing.

"To look closer," Danny supplied eyeing the opened manila folder before him, "to delve more into the depths of the case. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Is he being cryptic again?" Hawkes pondered, getting himself one photograph from in front of him laid out on the table. "I thought we're about to close this case."

"We came close to," Mac said upon entering the room with an evidence bag and a manila folder. It contained the silver necklace they found in the warehouse, not too far from where the body was. "I'm sure all of you remember about this necklace."

Danny shrugged a shoulder. "It's Felicia's one." He still had no idea of where this was leading to.

"And her friend has one too," Mac added.

"Lilith Crawford," Stella said. "She lost it."

"That's right," Flack said, "and guess where she lost it?"

Stella, Danny and Hawkes were quiet for a moment.

"The warehouse," Hawkes stated.

"Wait," Danny spoke up, "you mean she was _in_ the warehouse?"

"That's what the evidence is telling me," Mac reasoned.

"Lilith Crawford?" Stella questioned, "How can you be so sure, Mac? It could have been someone else's one, similar to this one."

"Mrs. Fontane came by earlier to give me Felicia's necklace and I asked her if the necklace we found at the scene is Lilith's and she confirmed it," Flack offered.

"You do remember what Mrs. Fontane said – it has its own significance to it. Same custom-made pendant but not exactly the same," Mac explained. "That's what I mean by looking closer." He pulled out a photograph from the manila folder in his hand and placed it on the table – a photograph of both Felicia Fontane and Lilith Crawford with the same silver necklace and blue pendant around their necks. "It looks exactly the same at first glance, doesn't it?"

Danny nodded. "Yeah, it does."

Stella looked closer, focusing mainly on the pendants. Her eyes compared with the one worn by Lilith to the worn by Felicia, scrutinizing it down. Then, she saw it. The different color shade; Lilith's one was lighter while Felicia's one was darker. When Mac confirmed that she was right, she was still confused.

"But we've got the guy who killed Felicia, Mac," Stella stated.

"We did," he agreed, "but maybe, Edward Smith is not responsible for her death. He may be responsible for what he did to Lindsay and Irina and those people that we found down there but that doesn't necessarily mean that Edward Smith is the guy responsible."

"This is absolutely perplexing," Hawkes remarked, rubbing his forehead. "Edward Smith killed the four teenagers we found underground, correct? Now, according to family and Lilith herself, those four teenagers were close friends with her and Felicia. Don't you see the connection here?"

Danny nodded. "I see it. Edward killed the four teenagers which, like Hawkes had said it earlier, that they were close friends with Lilith and Felicia. Now that those four are dead in the hands of Edward, he could have killed Felicia, too, because they were related in a way."

Stella nodded, "in terms of friendship."

"That's true," Mac agreed, "but you guys don't see how Flack and I see it. Those four are dead, so is Felicia, and they were close friends of Lilith. So since the evidence is telling me that Lilith was in the warehouse and that they were close friends of Lilith, then why Edward didn't kill her as well?"

Then the room fell silent – eerily silent. Mac had a point there but Stella apparently had some more theories about this.

"Maybe she wasn't there at all," Stella tried. "Maybe Felicia took her necklace without her knowing it and when it was found at the scene, it has made it seem as if Lilith was there."

"She said she lost it, Stella," Mac argued.

"Yeah, lost it to Felicia," she said.

But Hawkes had a different theory of his own.

"Let's say she was actually there with her," Hawkes suggested. "Edward was already inside and when he attacked Felicia, Lilith ran away. There must have been some sort of struggle to have the necklace tossed to the ground."

"Even so," Flack said after being quiet for quite some time, "she's not telling us the whole truth. She was in the warehouse and she witnessed the attack but she didn't admit it when I interrogated her the other day."

"Well, the more reason why we should bring her in for another round of interrogation," Mac declared, taking the photograph earlier and the evidence bag with him. "Come on, we don't want to keep our guest waiting."

"But Mac," Stella stopped him from walking. "Why the sudden interest of looking closer and delving into the depths? You were certain that it was Edward Smith behind this."

"Lindsay said that when she arrived, the body wasn't there," Mac informed. "And the possible suspect alive is Lilith Crawford."

Danny looked at Mac. "I don't understand."

"You'll get the picture soon, Danny," Mac simply said before walking out, on his way to one of the Interrogation Room.


	7. Tears Like Rain

**CSI: NY**

_I'm sorry for the delay yet again._

_My deepest thanks to_ chili-peppersChocoBettyfoxdvdRenLissa_, and _xbexyboox

_Each of your reviews are highly appreciated. _

_So here's the following chapter. There's no story-telling session with Lindsay this time because the team is stuck with Lilith._

_Please read and review._

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Six **

Featuring:

**Insight about Lindsay's Envy Thoughts—Lilith Crawford Interrogation**

Lindsay was alone once again.

It had been a few hours since Mac and Flack left. There it was – hours, but it felt like it had been five minutes ago. The time was incredibly slow. It was enjoying in all its glory watching her in complete misery, shifting about in bed despite the nurse's advice not to move too much.

She was getting restless.

There was nothing much to do other than just being in bed and rest. That was all she was required to do while she was there, donning just the pale blue scrubs that all patients were supposed to wear. She averted her eyes from the dull white wall to the window, pulling the covers further up. Even by looking outside there was nothing interesting to see. It was just another building of the hospital, branching out with people in blue scrubs, white coats and with a splash of other assortment of colors walking about. They looked like small little dots from her window. Just like those bite size candies – Skittles.

She frowned.

Skittles – she disliked it ever since she found out Danny had bought Irina one.

_"So, Callahan, word has it that you missed your lunch?"_

Lindsay was there, right beside Irina and he had not so much as glanced at her to acknowledge her presence. There wasn't a nod; wasn't a greeting; nothing.

_"Flack missed his lunch so he's decided that since I was with him, he'd make me miss my lunch too," she had said, looking up at him._

Lindsay saw the look in his eyes. The way it gleamed down at the new colleague was different. It wasn't gleaming the way that it was when he looked down at her. Then he pulled out a packet of Wild Berry Skittles. The look on Irina's face was unreadable.

Lindsay, on the other hand, felt her face crammed.

As she continued looking out of the window, she realized speckles of water droplets hit the window pane. She listened to the thudding sound it made. It was slow at first and sort of therapeutic for her. Then it came hitting at the glass rapidly, sharply and aggressively that she was afraid the glass would break.

Then she frowned. The glass back in the lab—she had been standing on the other side, looking in on the inside, just watching, wondering how far they would take it. Their lips were moving, Danny becoming dangerously close to Irina as she bent over the table looking at evidence closely.

She felt her heart being pricked with thousands of needles as Irina stood back up straight, her back pressed to his chest. She fit in right there firmly, perfectly, and fittingly. It was as if she was meant to be in his arms.

The moment he placed both of his hands upon the table on either sides of her; trapping her in between it and him, Lindsay walked away and almost rammed herself into someone's chest. She looked up.

Flack was watching the two inside the room.

There was pain in his eyes. He looked offended and then, without so much as glancing down at her, he resumed on walking.

The rain was pouring heavily. As the lightning struck the earth, she had frowned yet again. The heavy rain flooded her head with a memory that had been forever etched into her mind.

_"There's no way we're sharing an umbrella and not get wet," Flack pointed out as Irina, Danny and Lindsay stood by the entrance door of the building._

_"I've got one with me," Danny said, "so we'll go in pairs."_

Lindsay watched as his fingers wrapped around Irina's arm so firmly, so perfectly, so fittingly, and tugged her to walk out with him. It was as if he was just the right person to do that – to hold her hand, to guide her down the busy sidewalk.

Even in the blurriness of her vision due to her threatening tears, she could see Flack looking down at her. Perhaps, he was just seeing how she'd reacted to that, or making sure if she was okay.

But as she blinked back the tears, her vision had cleared up and she could see more of Flack clearly, she found out that she was wrong. His expression was unreadable as he looked down the direction Danny and Irina had gone. Then his expression changed. She didn't know how to describe it but the suitable word was offended.

Flack was offended, just like how he had seemed to be the last time.

Lindsay looked away from the window and somehow, it fixed on the tulips by the bedside table. The flower – Danny had forgotten her favorite kind of flower that day and he had settled on buying her sunflowers. How he could have mistaken her for liking sunflowers was a mystery to her.

But she knew one thing for sure.

Ever since Irina Callahan came, things were never the same. Danny had more of his attention on Irina instead of her. Every morning, Irina was the first person Danny greeted.

She was the second now.

_"Hey," Flack had said to her one day, "I've always been the second, the third, maybe the tenth or maybe even the last person to greet you in the morning but I'll be the first now."_

She knew he was joking. It was just a joke to make her feel better but she couldn't see past the offended look on his face and the pain in his eyes.

**X**

"Am I in trouble?"

That was the first thing that came out of Lilith Crawford's mouth the moment the detective entered the room – the detective whose name she couldn't remember. It was there in the back of her mind but the anxiousness overtaking her small frame was preventing her from identifying him.

Since the detective wasn't speaking to her just yet, she was beginning to get claustrophobic. Under the detective's intense gaze, her forehead had begun to form beads of sweat, and palms already wet. Her thin eyebrows were furrowed; her big and round green eyes were—literally—burning holes into the metal table before her. Unlacing her fingers, she brought a hand to her forehead and wiped the beaded sweat away.

"You did something wrong?"

She didn't answer. She didn't shrug. She didn't look up to meet his eyes. She stared down at the table, and her fingers were laced back together, placed stiffly upon her lap.

"How about we proceed while waiting for Detective Taylor?" he suggested. "I've got a few questions for you."

She wasn't going to say anything to the intimidating detective. It was something like Detective Flake…Fleck…Flock – whatever his name was. So she had decided to wait—anxiously—for Detective Taylor to come.

Quietly, without meeting his eyes, she spoke, "I'll wait for Detective Taylor."

Nervous, she was.

_"I was at Timothy's grandmother's house," Lilith said as she watched the tall detective in front of her with reddened eyes. He looked up from his notebook briefly and nodded for her to go on. "We were…we were finishing up on our school project."_

_"Was Felicia there?"_

_She shook her head. "Everyone else was except her; she was late, like always."_

_"Okay, so by everyone else you mean Timothy, Dominique—"_

_"Vincent, and Monica," she finished for him._

_"And you," he added._

_"Yeah," she nodded, "and me."_

_"Do you know where they are now?"_

_As his eyes met hers, she looked away. "Aren't they home?"_

_"No and since you're the last one on the list, we came to you."_

_She brought a shaky hand to her face and wiped away the tears. "I last saw them all at Timothy's before I left. I was going home."_

_"What time was that?"_

_"Late twelve in the noon," she answered shakily. "You can ask my father. I was home by then."_

_"So you said that you were at Timothy's grandmother's house from ten to twelve today and you didn't find it strange that Felicia didn't turn up after two hours?"_

_She licked her lips and then pursed them together. "I…I tried calling her cell. She didn't answer any of my calls. I thought nothing of it. This was usual with her."_

_"You mean with her showing up late and not answering her calls?"_

_"Yeah," she nodded._

_"Have you any idea how she ended up being in that warehouse or what she was doing there in the first place?"_

_"No, I don't."_

_"Are you sure?"_

"Lilith Crawford," Mac called as he placed a manila folder and several evidence bags on the table. "Do you know why you're here?" Taking a seat from across her, he looked at her.

She was small for a sixteen year old. Her brown hair was straight, silky under the illumination of the light overhead. Her eyes were a vivid tone of green; vivacious two orbs, but he saw the wariness in them.

On top of it all, she had an elfin face. She had a delicate appearance.

Just like Felicia Fontane.

Those two looked very much alike.

"Lilith," Mac began as it was obvious she was not going to answer his previous question. "I have questions for you in regards to Felicia Fontane's murder. You told Detective Flack everything he needed to know—"

_The name's Detective Flack,_ she took a mental note.

"—and that was great; that was a great help, Lilith, but," he slid the evidence bag containing her necklace over to her, "we found your necklace _in _the warehouse. You said you lost it, we believed you. You told us you've never been in that warehouse and we didn't question you any further, but you were _in_ that warehouse, weren't you, Lilith?"

Her lips began to tremble. She lowered her head even more, squeezed her eyes shut as she placed both her palms atop the metal table, shaking. Then the tears came. Mac saw the first few droplets, landing on the metal surface and offered her a piece of tissue paper.

"Are you going to tell me and Detective Flack here exactly what happened?"


	8. Parceled Up

**CSI: NY**

_As usual, my thanks to _ChocoBetty, xbexyboox_, and_ chili-peppers _for your reviews._

_Here is the next update._

_Please read and review._

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Seven **

**Featuring: Interrogation II—3 of Your 5 Senses to Barbed Wire****

* * *

**

"Okay," Lilith finally said after a moment of uneasy silence. Her voice shook when she spoke and her heart raced. "I was in the warehouse. Felicia called. Told us to meet her there. So we went."

Flack who was sitting next to Mac leaned in closer to the table. "So you've been there for more than once?"

She nodded, fiddling with the damped tissue paper.

"For what purpose?" Mac asked this time.

She shrugged. "We'll go when we feel like it. Vincent found that place."

"Were you there before Saturday, the day Felicia was murdered and your friends went missing?"

"Yeah, I was there with Monica," she answered, clasping her hands together on the table. "It was on Thursday."

"So," Flack spoke up, "any idea how your necklace was on the ground inside the warehouse?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I broke the chain so it must have fallen off when I was with Monica that day, or when we went there on Saturday."

"Okay," Mac nodded. "Now, I need to know what happened when you got there. Did you meet her? Why did she ask all of you to meet in that warehouse? What was her reason?"

She bit at her nails for a while, fingers still trembling, forehead still forming beads of sweat. Her heart was racing so fast now that she could barely breathe properly. The two detectives waited patiently from across the table for her to start talking.

"When we..." she started off, looking at Mac, "when we arrived, she wasn't there."

_"I don't see her," Dominique said. "You sure she said to meet her here?"_

_"Maybe she's hiding," Monica snorted. "She's always hiding."_

_"In all the unspeakable spots," Timothy added, laughing._

_"Try calling her cell," Lilith suggested. "Maybe she's late."_

_"She's _always_ late, Lilith," Vincent sneered. "We all know that."_

"Dominique tried but she didn't pick up," Lilith finished off.

"Didn't you wait for her to come?"

She looked at Mac. "_I_ did, Detective Taylor, for like, half an hour. She didn't turn up so I walked away. I had to get home."

"What about your friends?"

"They stayed. I'd wait if I could but I had to get home."

"So that's where you last saw them all – in the warehouse, not at Timothy's?"

"Right," she confirmed.

"What about your necklace?" Flack asked again.

"I tripped on some loose dirt on my way out of that warehouse," she replied sharply. "Maybe that's how my necklace got there. Like I said, I broke the chain which I thought I already got it fixed." She timidly glanced at the two detectives. "Am I in trouble?"

**X**

The next day, Lindsay found herself staring back at Hawkes who was currently looking back at her stoically. He was waiting for her to begin her story. There he sat, in the seat that Mac usually occupied, a writing pad on his lap, pen already poised with a stoic look masking his face. Then there was a tape recorder, placed atop the bedside table, just in front of the vase of tulips.

Wilting, it was. Just like how Hawkes appeared in her eyes; weak and tired and looked just about ready to collapse to the floor and shut himself down.

_"Mac's a little busy today, possibly tomorrow as well and the following day too. So since we're already short of two people on the team, Mac has suggested we take turns," _Hawkes had explained earlier. "_Today is me, obviously."_

She wanted to ask when Danny's turn was but she didn't.

Instead, she began her story.

_"3 of your 5 senses shall help," Irina repeated to herself quietly as she looked around the room. "To get out, 3 of your 5 senses shall help." She pressed both of her palms against the cold, dirty wall. "That's to feel, to see and to what?" She began feeling around the surface, hoping that maybe there was some kind of door that her eyes just glanced over, without noticing it._

_Lindsay copied her movement, only that she was pressing her ears against it. She remembered the ear being nailed to a wall. Maybe that was a clue. "To hear, maybe?" she suggested._

_"I hear nothing," Irina stated, pushing herself off from being pressed up against the wall._

_Lindsay motioned her to come over. "Listen," she instructed as she knocked on the wall. "It's hollow." Then she felt the color drained from her face. She stood rigid, held her breath and listened once more for assurance. "I hear sobbing on the other side."_

_"How do we get out—break the wall?"_

"Did you, really?" Hawkes asked.

"Well, it was hollow and of plaster," she stated, "we managed to break off a section which was big enough for us to get through."

"You're tough," he commented, smiling. "Go ahead. What happened then?"

This was the moment she had been dreading.

_The countdown started. It was there, attached to the wall, glaring its bright orange digital numbers at them._ **You reach that floor after the countdown finishes…**

**0300_—_**_it read. _

_They found themselves standing in a narrow passageway. It was dark, the air was thick and the sobs which had now turned into whimpers were getting louder as they made their way cautiously toward the source._

_That was when the nightmare started._

_No, those times they spent in that white-walled room was nothing compared to this. That was just the prologue of what was to come in the near future._

_And they were staring at it now._

_There on the dirt, amongst many pieces of garbage, littering the ground like confetti in large chunks was a little girl – so small, so innocent and so fragile. A tear-stained elfin face, looking like a broken porcelain doll, she was suffocating. Her eyes were two dark hollows, like charcoals; so dark and black, and yet it glistened in the dark, looking back at the two women._

_Her tears came freely as the adults found themselves frozen in their spots. The girl was whimpering again as the two dark hollows widened in pain._

_It was a desperate silent plea to free her from the pain and misery. She couldn't move; couldn't talk. She could only whimper…anything she tried to say came out nonsensical._

_"Do something!" Irina had cried suddenly, grabbing Lindsay's wrists._

_**Do something,** the word echoed in her head. What could she possibly do to help? _

_**Free her,** the inner voices said. **Free the girl, Lindsay.**_

_But **how**, she questioned herself._

_The girl was parceled up in barbed wire, from head to toe, tight enough to make her bleed; tight enough to have the thorns penetrating her delicate skin, squeezing the blood out of her, bit by bit, inch by inch, until the very last drop…until her body became soulless, lying there, drenched; soaked right down to the bones in a pool of her own blood._

_Lindsay couldn't move. She just couldn't._

_Irina being close to tears now left Lindsay's side and knelt down by the girl, her hands trembling._

_The girl whimpered again, pleading with her eyes. Irina imagined how the girl would plead with words if the barbed wire hadn't criss-crossed over her mouth._

_"Hang in there, sweetie," Irina pleaded with her. It came out shaky; frightened. She didn't know why she said it but she felt the need to. She knew the girl wouldn't be able to hang in there. She couldn't sustain the pain and the rapid loss of blood only made the situation worse. So she did the unthinkable._

_**What are you doing?** Lindsay wanted to scream at the raven-haired detective. She wanted to stop her, slapped some sense into her if necessary. They knew there was no way the girl could be free. There just wasn't. There wasn't any hope._

_And with that, she finally found her voice. "Irina, don't—"_

_She glanced over at Lindsay. "**No**, Lindsay, don't. She's still alive and in pain and I'm **not** going to watch her slip away!"_

_Then, there she was, doing it again: touching the barbed wire trying to uncoil it as she felt it coiling even tighter around that bundle of flesh. The girl cried, whimpered and jerked for the first time. The scream didn't escape her lips; she screamed in her mouth._

_Then Irina became desperate._

_She grabbed a fistful of the barbed wire; like one would grab a handful of candies and tried to…she didn't even know what she was doing anymore. The thorns had penetrated the flesh of her palms. Blood were rolling down her arms like ringlets, dripping, mixed with the blood of the young girl's on the dirt. The strong smell of copper tickled her nostrils. Her brain registered the stinging pain she was putting herself through, and yet, she didn't stop trying._

_That was, until the last whimper was heard, and when Lindsay's fingers grabbed her shoulders, and tugged her away from the girl, did she stop._

_The girl, the porcelain doll, was dead._

Hawkes blinked. Irina actually went that far to save the girl?

"Angelica Lovehart," he told her shortly after, quietly, as if he was giving away one big secret, "the girl's name. She was on the missing persons list."

Lindsay managed a soft smile. "Irina would be glad to know her name."


	9. Enveloped

**CSI: NY**

_My thanks to **chili-peppers **and **xbexyboox.** _

_Thank you for your reviews. I'm glad you enjoy the previous chapter. I hope you will too with this update._

_Please read and review._

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Eight **

**Featuring:**

**A Little Message—Numbers—the Door  
**

**

* * *

**  
"Mac," Stella called as she stepped into his office. "I've just finished talking to Mr. Crawford. He said there's a door in that warehouse—" she stopped when she realized he wasn't even listening to her; he had his eyes fixed on a paper on his desk, analyzing it. "Mac?" she called again.

He nodded after that, acknowledging what she had just said. "I heard you the first time, Stella." He looked up and met her eyes. "So it's true." 

She looked at him, confused. "What is?"

He lifted the piece of paper that he had been reading earlier and handed it over to her. "It came in an envelope, sitting on Flack's desk this morning."

She looked down at it. There printed on the paper was just a sentence:

**THERE IS A SECRET DOOR IN THAT WAREHOUSE.**

"Someone sent this to Flack?"

He nodded. "Someone definitely did—someone who knows about the warehouse."

"Someone who wants us to find that door," she added, "but why?"

"Maybe," he suggested, "it'll answer some of our questions."

**X**

Hawkes entered, leaving Danny standing alone by the door of the warehouse. He walked over to a corner, where he found Flack squatting behind a pile of old crates. He tried looking over his broad shoulders but he still couldn't quite see. Curious as to what the detective was looking at, he asked, "You found something?"

Flack glanced at him over his shoulders and smirked at him. He saw that hopeful look on Hawkes face – the one that clearly showed that he was hoping he wouldn't have to snoop around longer than necessary to find the door. "It's not the door," he announced, standing up and facing him, "but what I've found is better."

Hawkes shoulders slumped a little. "You know, the place gives me the creeps," he confessed as Flack brushed past him so he could take a closer look at the object lying on the ground. Squatting down, he frowned. It was a white blouse soaked with red. "You're right," he agreed as he stood up, "this is better. I'm going to get my kit."

"You think it belongs to the supposedly dead body?" Danny asked Flack, as Hawkes walked past.

Flack shrugged. "It could be." He began circling around the old pile of crates, looking through small cracks and gaps in between with his flashlight. "The door has to be in the ground, right? I can't see how the door can be in one of these walls and be a secret door; it leads into and out of the warehouse."

Danny couldn't help himself but chuckle from the other side of the piling crates. "A secret door in a warehouse and somehow, I find that funny."

"Everything's a joke for you, Messer."

"Not everything, Flack."

Hawkes returned with his kit and began bagging the evidence. The three didn't say a word to one another for a moment until they heard a soft _hmm_ from the other side.

"Hmm?" Danny inquired, hoping for an explanation from Flack.

"Hmm because I've found something interesting."

"And what might that be?" Hawkes asked observing from his spot.

**X**

Danny was supposed to be there – right there, sitting in the chair, right by her side. It was his turn today, Stella had told her. It was his turn but he was back in that decrepit warehouse, stuck, snooping around for some secret door along with two other people. She began to wonder if trying to tell what had happened down there was any use at all. What was the point in doing so, anyway?

She wanted to see his face, to hear his voice, and to feel his touch. He didn't come like he'd said he would the last time. _I'll see you later, _she remembered him saying. She looked at the retreating back of his, willing him to turn his head and looked at her...but he didn't.

And he didn't come by later.

She had waited for him, keeping her eyes on the door as figures clad in white coats and blue scrubs whizzed past until everything just turned into a blur of color. She had slipped into and out of sleep and every time she felt a presence in her room, it wasn't Danny that looked down at her.

"Oh," she heard Stella talking, "Hawkes says hi."

Stella had been talking ever since she entered but Lindsay wasn't quite listening. She was saddened by the thought that Danny wasn't there.

"So does Mac, and Flack," Stella added, flipping through the writing pad, pen in her grasp.

Lindsay waited for her to say something about Danny – anything about him.

Stella didn't.

"How's your ankle?"

How was her ankle? She didn't know. She hadn't been on her feet since the day she got admitted –at least, not as frequent as she was used to. She was practically bed-ridden, and if there was anywhere she really needed to be, a wheelchair was provided.

"Okay," she replied, "I guess."

Stella nodded and smiled at her. "Would you like to start now?"

_They had continued down the narrow passageway. It took Irina a while to pull herself together, and when she finally did, she had insisted that she was going to be just fine._

_Lindsay wasn't sure if she was going to be._

_Upon reaching the end of the passageway, a flight of stairs stood in their line of vision. It was of concrete – cold and hard and it stood high and proud, as if taunting them to climb and reach the top._

_And they did, in the darkness. They stumbled up the steps, missing a few of them along the way which caught them off balance, nearly losing a battle with gravity; nearly falling back down to start climbing from the bottom all over again._

_Lindsay had to hold Irina's arm, to guide her up the steps and making sure she didn't fall the next time she slipped again._

_They came face-to-face with a wooden door. Lindsay turned the knob successfully as Irina busied herself with letting the material of her blouse seeped the blood on both of her palms._

_"It's unlocked," she said over her shoulders._

_The door swung outward and what greeted them was unbelievable._

_On either sides of the narrow passageway, nailed to the walls from ceiling to floor, were white envelopes with numbers printed upon it. _

_**This is crazy,** Lindsay thought as she walked through the door, taking the sight in._

_Irina picked up an envelope left by the door on the ground which Lindsay didn't notice. Unlike the ones nailed to the walls, it had a question mark on its surface._

_"I found something," she announced._

"It's the clue, I supposed?" Stella inquired, curious, as she tapped the other end of the pen upon the writing pad. "What did it say?"

"**Why does a door have a lock?**" Lindsay told her and the look on her face clearly showed that she wanted her to guess.

"For safety purposes?" Stella suggested.

"Or, for privacy purposes," Lindsay added.

"Is that it – the answer to the clue?"

She shook her head in return. "Irina figured this one out. It's because the lock has a key."

_"But what's with the numbers?"_

_Irina shrugged. "I don't know. It could be something; could be nothing."_

"We found the key in the envelope of **013**."

"Thirteen," Stella mused.

"As we later found out, we had thirteen more levels to go."

**X**

"I'm calling Mac," Flack announced as he walked out with the bagged evidence while simultaneously fiddling with his phone.

Danny stared off after him and looked at Hawkes. "He just doesn't want to help with shifting this thing here," he accused, patting the old crate in front of him. "And we've got three to move."

"The man's wearing a suit," he reasoned with Danny.

"So? It never stopped him from chasing down perps."

"Maybe he prefers running more than shifting things around," he suggested already slipping his hands between the gaps of the crates. Danny jerked the crate out and due to the friction beneath, it took them quite a while to have three of the crates out of the way.

Not long after, a sweating Danny and an exhausted Hawkes stood staring down at the door in the ground. It was a wooden door, with a rusty metal ring as the handle.

"Don't tell me it's locked," Flack said, eyeing the door as he approached the two with water bottles in hand.

"It is locked," Hawkes confirmed, "but we can simply unlock it."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Mac's voice reached their ears as he appeared in the doorway, looking in their direction. "I want to see what's down there."


	10. Connected

**CSI: NY**

_I'm sorry for the very, very, **very** long wait. Really, I do. I've been extremely busy; can't afford the time to update this. But I've managed to write this chapter up. : D_

_So as usual, before I start, I'd like to thank_ **chili-peppers,** **Mac's Girl** _and _**xbexyboox **_for your reviews. I'm glad that you like the previous update. I hope you'll enjoy this as well._

_Oh, and I like receiving reviews.._

**Chapter Ten**

Featuring:

**Doorframe—Down Under—Strand of Hair—the Unvoiced Thoughts**

* * *

"So, what happened next?" Stella asked, finding the story all the more intriguing as the moment went by. She somehow felt guilty for being so eager to know. After all, it was obvious Lindsay wasn't so willing to talk about it at the very beginning, and here was Stella, wanting to know more. 

"We walked down yet another passageway until a flight of stairs came into sight," Lindsay continued. "The width was as narrow as the last one and the smell was just as bad. If anything, it was worse. Then a flight of stairs came into sight. We ascended each steps, going slower this time, and I felt the need of helping Irina by holding her arm."

_Lindsay slid the key into the lock and turned it until she heard the familiar soft click. It was soft, yet it echoed down the empty space behind them._

_This time, Irina invited herself to walk through the door first. Picking up the envelope with that same question mark on it, she opened it._

**Clue #3:**

**THE KEY HAS THE LOCK**

**THE LOCK HAS THE DOOR**

**BUT WHAT DOES THE DOOR HAVE?  
**

**THAT'S YOUR NEXT DESTINATION.**

_"What?" Lindsay asked._

_Refusing to repeat herself, Irina simply handed the clue over as she walked further inside, only to discover that there were many doorways in front of her. Something clicked in her head._

_"What does this—" Lindsay was saying and as she stood beside Irina she stopped, the paper in her hand momentarily forgotten. "Of course," she mumbled to herself. "The door has a doorframe."_

_"Riddle solved," Irina declared, "but how are we supposed to know which one to go through?"_

_"We'll look for one that is without a door."_

"Did you find it?"

"We did," Lindsay nodded. "It wasn't that hard to find.

Stella was about to speak when her cell phone vibrated. She slipped her hand into the front pocket of her jacket and pulled put the vibrating object. She excused herself and walked out of the room. Flipping it open, she pressed it to her ear.

"Bonasera," she greeted.

**X**

Hawkes directed the flashlight in his hands to the opening of the secret door in the ground. From where he was standing, it looked like an abyss; a bottomless pit, a dark and never-ending journey down to nowhere. For now, the only thing that he could see was Danny's head slowly being swallowed up by the darkness as he made his descent, the rusty metal ladder rattling and creaking under his weight, complaining. He was disturbed by it and feared for his friend's safety; it looked as though it was going to come off of the side of the wall anytime soon.

In a distance, he could hear Mac's voice talking on his cell phone. He heard him saying that Flack was on his way back to the lab with the evidence that they had discovered earlier and he could only assume that it was Stella he was talking to. He wondered if she had gone back to the lab or was still in the hospital with Lindsay.

It only took him a one loud and abrupt thump to get his full attention back at the task at hand. For a moment, he panicked, thinking that the ladder had finally had enough sustaining Danny's weight. The ladder was still attached to the wall; it was only Danny that he couldn't see. Squatting down, he strained his eyes trying to locate his friend, vainly hoping that he could see despite the darkness. He shone the beam of light frantically and then called out to him.

No response. His voice echoed back to him.

"Danny?" he tried again.

Mac appeared next to Hawkes, concern etched upon his face. "Where is he?"

"Not on the ladder," Hawkes returned not glancing up at him, "that's for sure."

The two waited, straining to see and to hear if there was any kind of sound that might confirm Danny was okay. Then suddenly came the coughing and a string of profanities uttered softly in Italian that only Danny would say. Hawkes shook his head, relieved and in disbelief. He clearly had no reason to worry about Danny dying from just falling from a ladder; it was going to take him more than just falling from a rusty, old ladder.

"I'm okay," Danny finally called back, reassuring the two men. He pulled out the flashlight which he had pocketed earlier (and miraculously wasn't damage from the impact of the fall) and shone it in their direction. "I think I've got a—" He stopped abruptly the moment he felt something trickling down the side of his face. He touched it. It felt wet and as he shone the beam of light at his fingers, there was blood on it. Above him, on ground level, he heard a faint chuckle, coming undoubtedly from Hawkes.

"You think?" Hawkes retorted.

Mac, not wanting to get sidetracked, spoke up. "Do you see anything, Danny?"

"Well," he started off, looking around. "There's a door with chains around the handle to my right. Other than that, there's nothing else."

"There's another door?" Hawkes couldn't help but asked, baffled.

"It's locked," Danny shrugged.

"And we've come unprepared," Mac sighed. The other two—one at his feet and the other one down below in the dark—looked at him, waiting for his next order. Hawkes could practically imagine the gears working in his brain, analyzing the situation, just from the serious look on his face. With another sigh, though this time softer, he said, "We'll come back first thing tomorrow, break the chains and see what's beyond that door."

"Or," Hawkes suggested, rising to his feet and dusting himself free of the dust particles of the dirt from his pants, "I can try to pick the lock."

Danny's snort echoed up and reached Hawkes ears. "Can you?"

Hawkes grinned down at him. "I'm not a pro but I can still try."

"Okay," Mac agreed, gesturing Danny to come up. "You don't want to be down there, Danny."

**X**

Stella walked into the break room, a red plastic file in her hands, containing the DNA result of a strand of hair that she had found on the white blouse which Flack had brought it in for her not too long ago. She wondered where he had gone to after that. They barely spoke when the evidence was being handed over; Flack seemed like he needed to be somewhere else and was running late and Stella was just a little over excited to process the evidence.

When she did so though, she wasn't that happy. She was disappointed. The red stain on the white blouse wasn't even blood at all – something which she hadn't hoped for because she was going nowhere with it but with her close and immaculate scrutinizing, she found a strand of hair. Now that was when she felt her spirit being lifted up. Maybe this piece of evidence would be something that the team could work with to aid in their investigation.

She clamped the file down under her armpit as she opened the refrigerator door and bent down to retrieve a bottle of water. She walked over to a table, placed the file upon it and sat herself down. Uncapping the cap of the bottle, she brought it to her lips and gulped the water down.

She opened the file and read over the result.

**X**

It was close to evening and Flack figured that since he had to pass by the hospital on his way home, he would drop by and pay Lindsay for a short visit. That was his plan but somehow, he ended up being on Irina's floor, walking towards her room. He found himself hesitating to enter when he saw a man sitting by the bed, massaging the bridge of his nose.

He was going to turn and forget about visiting at all but he was too slow. The man had looked up and their eyes met – green on blue. It was the same kind of green that only Irina had, that he longed to see ever since that day when they found her unconscious.

The man beckoned him over. Flack obliged but before he could say anything, the man asked, "You a friend of hers?"

"Don Flack," he introduced himself, extending his hand out for a friendly handshake. _Who the hell is this man?_

"Oh, you're the detective," he said, smiling for the first time. "I'm Zachary Callahan, her brother."

_The brother,_ Flack thought, _of course._

"Have a seat," Zachary offered the chair that he was sitting on earlier but Flack refused immediately. "It's okay. There's another one for me. Oh, by the way, I don't think she'd want you here if she was conscious," he told him.

Occupying the chair that had been offered to him earlier, he thought to himself: _Why am I not surprised?_

"It's not that she hates you," he continued, his eyes on his sister. "It's just your name."

Flack looked at him, confused.

_What, she hates my name?_

He thought back to those first two weeks—almost two weeks if she hadn't gone missing on the fourteenth day on the job—when she came in. He tried being a friend, he was nice to her, tried to buy her lunch but she kept her distance with him, like she didn't like and want his company. She wasn't like that with Danny though – the man who had shamelessly flirted with her.

"Oh, come on," Zachary chuckled. "Don't give me that look." What look had Flack given him? "That pathetic, baffled look," he added. "Don't be ridiculous, all right, Don, may I address you by that name?" Flack nodded. "She doesn't hate your name."

"I know that," Flack lied. With that, he steered the conversation to another direction. "How's she doing, by the way?"

The brother shrugged in return. Wasn't it obvious that there had not been much progress? She was still as unconscious as the first day she got admitted, though she wasn't as pale as the sheet now; she looked much more alive but still, technically dead.

"I'm still waiting for her to open her eyes," he remarked.

_Me too, _Flack told himself, _me too._ He could have said it out loud but he didn't want to. He looked at Zachary apologetically as he felt his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Standing up, he said to him, "Excuse me. I have to take this call."

"Go on ahead, Detective."

Once outside, Flack answered the call.

"Hey, Flack," Stella's voice reached his ears. "You remember that strand of hair I found on the white t-shirt?"

"I'm listening," Flack answered.

"Well, listen to this: it's Lilith Crawford's."


	11. Linked

**CSI: NY**

First of all, let me apologize for my disappearance. I believe my last update was on 05-09-07. It's been long, yes, and I think it's about time that I update this now that my passion's been found yet again (it tends to run away and comes crawling back sometimes). Heh. Okay. Let's move on, shall we?

Before I start, I'd like to say my thanks to **xbexyboox****chili-peppers**_, and_ **TBD **_for your reviews! I _**appreciateit greatly **

**Enjoy...**

**Game of Insanity **

**Chapter Eleven**

**Featuring:  
The Threats—Via Tunnel

* * *

**

Lilith Crawford was crying – again. Flack who was circling the table in the interrogation room was running out of patience; he was tired of having to deal with this ordeal. She had been into the interrogation room for two times and she had been interrogated for the third time now and every time, she seemed to be making amends to her previous story. It irked him greatly.

"Tell us the truth, Lilith," Mac told her calmly, sitting across the table from her. It surprised the homicide detective how this man always managed to remain stoic even at times like this. Flack stopped circling the table and started pacing up and down behind him.

She shook her head, tears still spilling. "Stop harassing me. Please, don't make me do it."

Flack stopped and leaned over the table, towering over her. "You keep telling different stories. We just want—"

"You don't understand!" she cut him off angrily through her tears. "You just don't get it. I _can't_!"

"Now, _that_ I don't understand," Flack stated, looking at her right in the eye.

"I can't tell you the truth."

"Why?" Mac asked. "Are you covering up for someone?" Lilith shook her head, looking away. "We need the truth now, Lilith. We're doing an investigation here and I know that you're not telling the truth." She squeezed her eyelids shut and cried even harder, shaking her head in refusal. "Help me out here, Lilith. I _need_ the truth, the real truth. So, please, tell me everything you know."

She grabbed Mac's hand and looked at him pleadingly. "I _can't_, please, I just _can't._ Don't make me do it."

Flack looked at her, confused as to why she just couldn't tell them the truth. What was so hard about that? Why couldn't she anyway? Was she scared? Was she in on it too? Was she guilty? What exactly was it?

"Is someone threatening you?"

**X**

"Have you gone beyond this point?" Stella asked Hawkes as they both stood by the underground door which she had been told that he had picked its lock successfully. She pushed the rusty metal chain a little to the side with her foot before following in through the door after Hawkes. She had to blink several times to get her eyes adjusted to the darkness, though that didn't help much. She still couldn't see and she would most probably couldn't if it wasn't for the flashlight that she had pocketed earlier.

"You okay?" he asked over his shoulders, stopping for a while to ensure that his colleague wasn't falling that far behind him. "You're going much slower than I thought you would."

"It's too dark down here," she complained.

"Do you want me to hold your hand?" he joked.

They continued their way down the narrow passageway, the air they were inhaling becoming thicker and staler as they go deeper. Stella occasionally shone her flashlight to the ground as she followed Hawke's lead, who was trying to make this long journey to only God knows where a little less miserable by having a conversation.

"How's Lindsay doing?"

"Better," she simply replied. She wondered where this tunnel would end at, if it had an end to it because it seemed like an infinite stretch, luring them deeper, farther away from the warehouse. She was getting claustrophobic now. It was even getting hard to breathe.

"What morbid story has she told you?"

"Not much," she said. "The clues given weren't that too cryptic for the two to solve."

"No gory details?"

"Why, Hawkes, you sound disappointed," she stated, smiling.

"Maybe I am," he teased. The two went into a comfortable silence for a moment, the sounds of their thudded footsteps echoing within the enclosed space. "Do you think she'll wake up?"

"Of course she will," Stella assured him with confidence when frankly, she, too, wasn't sure that Irina would. "Have faith, Hawkes. I'm sure she will."

"I know," he returned, nodding his head. "It's just that it disturbs me having to see her so lifeless, lying there."

"It disturbs us, yes," she agreed, "but it disturbs the brother more."

After what seemed like an eternity, Hawkes announced that there was a partition in the way. Upon closer inspection, it was actually another door – a worn-down wooden door that looked about ready to fall out of its hinges. He pushed the door open cautiously and it swung outward slowly, creaking, pushing the small empty crates in its way as well. Once he had decided that it was safe to walk through, Stella followed after him.

They looked at the familiar surrounding – the narrow passageway and the blinding light, the source being that of the sunlight, at the top of the crippled wooden stairs where a doorframe stood still intact. The ground was littered with bits and pieces of wood – a sight that both Stella and Hawkes had seen before. Upon seeing the usual yellow tape across the doorway at every crime scene, it had confirmed their doubts: they had been there before, had processed the scene and it was also where they had rescued two of their teammates.

"Wow," Hawkes mused, looking at Stella. "We walked all the way from the warehouse to here via the tunnel?"

**X**

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Lilith," Mac encouraged her. "If you've got nothing to hide, you'd tell us everything."

He noted that she seemed hesitant after that, as if contemplating her choice. She looked at him with reddened eyes and then averted her gaze on Flack. Then back to Mac again. She was shaking her legs, a sign of distress. Finally, she spoke up with a croaked voice.

"He'll kill me if I told you guys everything."

The two detectives exchanged glances at that.

"He?" Flack inquired, being the one to break the gaze first.

She slid her left hand into the pocket of her jacket and then pulled out four balled-up pieces of paper. She placed it on the table and creased each one out before sliding it over to both Mac and Flack for a closer look.

"I don't know," she said meekly after that. "This could be some stupid prank but I…at least I hope it's just some stupid prank." _Who would want to prank me_, she thought to herself, _friends are all dead_.

Flack read the printed words on the white paper, intrigued. As he read each one, lines started to form upon his forehead.

**YOU HAVE SEEN TOO MUCH **

**YOU HAVE HEARD TOO MUCH **

**YOU HAVE KNOWN TOO MUCH **

**YOU TELL, I WILL KILL YOU!**

_Yep_, Flack thought to himself, _she's definitely being threatened_.

"You mentioned a 'he'," Mac said and she nodded. "How do you know it's a 'he'?"

"He'll kill me, Detective Taylor," she reminded him.

"That's not going to happen, Lilith," he assured her. "I'm not going to let that happen to you."

After a moment of consideration, she sighed. "I've seen him. He's the killer."

"The same man who sent you all of these threats?" She nodded. "How can you be so sure?"

She ran her hand through her hair. "It's only sensible that he would be sending me these threats. Like I've said, I've seen him and he saw me."

"Did you take a good look at his face?"

"No, he had a white mask on."

"Who did he kill?" She kept quiet then, tears forming in her eyes. Flack studied her. "Where did this take place?"

"The same warehouse," she answered.

"Who did he kill?" Flack repeated Mac's question.

"Lilith, did you witness it?"

"Not really but he made it seemed as if he was going to kill her and well, she turned up dead, didn't she?"

"So who did he kill?"

She just broke down after that and through her tears, she apologized. "I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. I just ran and didn't look back. She was screaming…"

The two detectives exchanged glances for a moment. Then Mac stood up and instructed an officer to get Lilith cleaned up.

"We'll continue when you're calmed and focused," he told her as the officer escorted her out. Once the door closed, Flack spoke up.

"So Edward Smith isn't really entirely responsible for this mess, huh?"

Mac nodded with a troubled expression on his face. "The one responsible is still somewhere out there."


End file.
